SAN DIEGO -- The Padres were facing elimination. The Brewers were trying to secure their first road postseason win in eight years.
Game 3 of the National League Division Series on Tuesday night at Petco Park was every bit as intense as it was expected to be.
Here’s an inning-by-inning breakdown of how the most important moments from San Diego’s 4-3 win played out:
Top 1st
Brewers left fielder Jackson Chourio electrified Milwaukee with his walk-off single to end Game 2. He aimed to silence San Diego to begin Game 3.
Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill had other plans.
Chourio laced a 103.2 mph liner into the gap in left-center to lead off the evening against Nick Pivetta. Merrill raced over to make a sliding catch that had Petco Park buzzing from the jump.
“I just want to be the best defender possible for my pitcher, no matter who is out there,” Merrill said. “Ball goes up, I got to do my best to try and catch it.”
Merrill was just getting started …
Top 3rd
Brewers right fielder Sal Frelick led off the third against Pivetta with another ball that had extra bases written all over it. His manager tried to will the ball down in right-center.
“Get in the gap Sal!” Pat Murphy shouted during an in-game interview on the FS1 broadcast.
Out of nowhere, once again, came Merrill making a seemingly identical play to the one he made in the first. He covered 77 feet to make this play after ranging 96 feet on his catch two innings prior.
“God damn it, Merrill,” Murphy exclaimed.
Bottom 3rd
The Padres lacked the big hit in the first two games of the series, going 3-for-18 with runners in scoring position and stranding 20 men on base. They needed a spark. Samad Taylor gave them one.
He singled off Brewers starter Dustin May, then immediately stole second base. Jake Cronenworth moved Taylor to third with a sacrifice bunt and brought the crowd to its feet. Fernando Tatis Jr. plated Taylor moments later on a groundout. San Diego wasn’t done, though.
Merrill singled and stole second. Then, Manny Machado turned up the volume, grounding a single through the left side to score Merrill and give the Padres an early two-run cushion. It was pandemonium at Petco.
But it wouldn’t last long …
Top 4th
William Contreras responded by swatting a hanging sweeper from Pivetta 365 feet into the left-field seats. Padres fans didn’t appreciate it, showering the Brewers’ backstop with boos as he started to trot.
Contreras took his time. His trip around the bases lasted 32.42 seconds, but it may as well have taken an hour by the way the crowd responded.
Contreras, who went 3-for-4, made sure to savor it.
Bottom 4th
Murphy wasn’t messing around.
After walking Padres catcher Ethan Salas on four straight pitches to lead off the inning, May threw a fifth consecutive ball to Xander Bogaerts to begin the next at-bat. That’s when Murphy emerged from the dugout and gave May the hook in a 1-0 count. He handed the ball to lefty JoJo Romero, who proceeded to retire the next three batters to escape the frame.
Every pitch matters in October. Murphy’s decision here illustrated that perfectly.
What could May have done differently?
"Definitely not a four-pitch walk and definitely not starting Bogaerts off with another ball -- so five in a row and I end up getting pulled,” May said.
Top 5th
Pratt and Frelick singled, Joey Ortiz moved them both into scoring position on a sacrifice bunt, passing the baton to the top of the Brewers’ order. With a chance to sweep San Diego and advance to the NL Championship Series, this was the time for Milwaukee to sink the dagger.
Padres manager Craig Stammen went to his bullpen with Chourio coming up for a third time. Right-hander Jason Adam came in and got Chourio to send a fly ball to left that Dustin Harris camped under, ready to fire to home plate to try and cut down the tying run. Merrill, who has the better arm, may have had a better angle, though.
“It was kind of fading toward left, I trust Dustin with that. I just told him, ‘You got to go,’” Merrill said.
Pratt sprinted home ahead of Harris’ throw to make it 2-2. There were two outs, but the Brewers pushed for more. Jake Bauers walked before Contreras reached on a ground ball that Bogaerts kept in the infield with a diving stop -- a play that may have saved another run from scoring and maybe the game itself.
"I strongly believe the diving play probably was the momentum shift during the game,” Bogaerts said. “If that ball goes by, we're losing by a run now. ... As soon as the ball hit, I didn't even think I had a chance, and the more it kept going, I just dove, and it went in the glove.”
In stepped Brice Turang, hitless in the series to that point, with an opportunity to really come though. Stammen brought in left-hander Yuki Matsui to counter.
This was Turang’s chance; instead, his 0-fer continued, as he grounded out to end the inning and dropped to 2-for-his-last-40.
"I'm trying to get a good pitch to hit. It just didn’t work out," Turang said.
Bottom 5th
Speaking of players searching for something -- anything -- to show for at the plate, Cronenworth entered the game 1-for-13 this postseason. He finally had his moment in the fifth.
Cronenworth sent Romero’s first offering of the inning into the right-field seats to reclaim the lead for the Padres and send Petco into a frenzy once more. Cronenworth, who logged a pair of hits, could finally exhale.
“It's hard to describe, but it's one of those things that just when it happens, you get excited,” Cronenworth said. “I don't know what else to say.”
The Padres added critical run support not too long after that …
Bottom 6th
The Brewers got two quick outs to begin the inning. Then chaos ensued.
Bogaerts singled to keep the inning alive, then he advanced to second on a wild pitch. Miguel Andujar came in to pinch-hit for Harris.
After working the count full, Andujar hit a broken-bat ground ball toward Pratt at short. Bogaerts had to hurdle over the ball on his way to third, serving perhaps as the perfect distraction for Pratt who, steering clear of the bat tumbling toward him, short-hopped Bauers on his throw to first.
The ball kicked away. Bogaerts took off for the plate.
As he slid head-first into home, the throw from Bauers came in high and it was bedlam once again in downtown San Diego.
“I didn't expect him to throw it badly,” Bogaerts said of Pratt’s throw. “But if it goes wide, try to score. And I mean, it didn't kick off that much, but I think just me anticipating that definitely helped for sure. Because if I wasn't, I would've just stayed at third."
He had one more big moment to come.
Top 8th
The Brewers plated a run on a Christian Yelich single in the seventh off Bradgley Rodriguez. Shortly after that, Michael King shed his sweatshirt and started getting loose in the Padres’ bullpen.
Just two days after he threw 72 pitches over five innings in Game 2, King entered Game 3 in the eighth looking to persevere a one-run lead and force a Game 4. With Mason Miller and Adrian Morejon unavailable, the Padres needed someone else to step up to help finish the game.
King had already made it clear he was available.
“I know that I have bullets in my arm that I don't want to save,” he said.
King navigated through the eighth with relative ease, retiring Pratt, Frelick and Chourio to strand David Hamilton, who singled off him. The ninth wouldn’t be so easy.
Top 9th
Petco Park was on its feet for the entirety of the ninth, watching King strike out Bauers to open the inning. But anxiety started to set in as Contreras worked a nine-pitch walk in an excellent back-and-forth battle, then Turang walked. That brought up Yelich with the tying and go-ahead runs on base.
After the agony of the first two games of the series, this looked all too familiar. But King got Yelich to bounce a ball to Bogaerts at short. And all the 14-year veteran -- who has played in so many of these games before -- needed to do was step on second before firing to first to get Yelich on a game-ending double play.
Padres fans prayed for one more night, one more chance to fight to keep their season alive.
Bogaerts’ play gave them just that.
“The resilience we showed today, the stick-to-it-ness, the keep bouncing back, all the adjectives you can use for that, this team showed it all year, and they showed it especially again tonight,” Stammen said. “We're going to have to do it again tomorrow.”